According to the Europe2020 Strategy, Europe should become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world. The Europe2020 Strategy conclusions stressed the central role of education and training as the main instrument to increase human capital. MMost of the managers are only partially satisfied with the training of the employees. The main reason why employers consider training as not sufficiently effective is: - Lack of activities designed to improve adult education provision across the participating countries; - Lack of training institutions capable to design and implement effective strategies for enhancing basic skills; - Lack of training institutions to carry out effective training; - Inability to apply new knowledge in practice; - Lack of employee interest, etc. In the current economic and social framework, enterprises, especially small and medium businesses (SME) should present stronger innovation capacity for strategic management and internationalisation. Taking this into consideration, it has become more important than ever that companies take advantage of the potential of the human capital they have and further expand its capacity and engine through innovation and ICT. It is a consensus that ICT supports the development of innovative learning environments, especially through virtual games, that focus on specific settings and creates real scenarios with which the user interacts to respond to specific challenges and learns how to successfully address the problems or obstacles. Such virtual games, have back-stories based on real-based situations, and follow a professional context line, even if inferred. In addition, interactivity makes it possible to know the impact of the player’s actions, by his/her answers to questions or situations in virtual scenarios. Virtual Games are especially useful for skill development. Rather than offering traditional paper-based or online static courses, games can offer an incredibly immersive and engaging environment where users ‘learn by doing’. Users make and learn from their own mistakes in a controlled environment. This trial and error based approach supports well learning and is able also to improve teamwork, social skills, leadership and collaboration. BGame aims to create a strategic management virtual game for SMEs to further improve the strategic management skills of SME employees and managers and extend the learning opportunities of individual adult learners in entrepreneurial contexts. This aim will be accomplished by designing and producing innovative learning resources (game scenarios) able to support strategic management by using real situations in professional contexts, meeting the needs of SME’s managers and other staff in business-oriented companies. To accomplish such aim, BGame will: • Assess the actual competence of the company employees for using Virtual Games in Strategic Management. • To train 25 managers (including HR representatives) on teaching Strategic Management Games, • To develop 8 cases ready to use in Virtual Games, • To develop teaching notes for the games and pilot 8 games training a group of managers on Strategic Management, • To amend the 8 games according to the feedback after the pilot training, • To develop the textbook and an article on using ICT in teaching process, • Disseminate results of the project in 1 international conference. Target groups of the project are: direct – adult learners (managers). Indirect target group are educators & trainers dealing with Strategic Management education. The beneficiaries are: adult learners, SME managers, enterprises. Duration of the project will be 24 months.
“BGame: Innovative Strategic Management Games as a teaching methodology for entrepreneurship and business education” aimed at creating a strategic management virtual game for SMEs to further improve the strategic management skills of SME employees and managers and extend the learning opportunities of individual adult learners in entrepreneurial contexts. As a complement to the virtual game, BGame also offered a set of training resources for business trainers to further improve their knowledge on topics related with strategic management, including human resource management, internationalisation, sales and finances, marketing and advertising. Virtual games or business simulation games are designed to improve knowledge about business and to improve specific related-skills, which in turn leads to more efficient and effective organizations. For any employee to be (more) effective they need to understand how the business works, what it takes for the company to be successful and, more importantly, what contribution they need to make to ensure it is operating effectively and efficiently. A virtual game or simulation (that is built based on the reality and day-to-day functioning of a company, such as BGame) is one of the most effective learning processes there is. The experience develops participants’ business intelligence, helping them to understand and actually perceive the extent of their (day-to-day) contribution and the importance of their decisions and their attitudes. Through BGame and its resources, business owners and managers had the opportunity to learn to make better decisions for their organisation (namely Small and Medium Enterprises – SMEs) and form better relationships – allowing the SME to have a more effective, motivated and knowledgeable workforce. The partnership was composed by a very good mix of professional partners, operating in the field of Vocational Education and Training – VET - (DieBerater and Fundación Equipo Humano), Business and Strategic Management (INOVA+, Instalofi and PEEP), Business Education (Poznan University). It also counted with the technical expertise of ASSIST Sotware. All partners accounted also with many years of experience in managing and/or implementing European Projects, designing and/or implementing VET courses, conducting training in and with businesses and networking with training actors. The main steps of implementation of BGame were as follows: in IO1, partners started with an intensive desk/bibliographic research on the topic of gamification/virtual games for businesses in the countries of the partnership, which was followed by the design and application of a survey near company trainers (mostly with business background) and near business managers and entrepreneurs. The collected answers enabled the partnership to decide on the main scenarios that would be built and the main competences that would be approached in the training resources. This exercise resulted in the production of a Transnational Report on “Understanding the impact and use of virtual games in Small and Medium Enterprises”, where it presents the main findings of the analysis undertaken in Portugal, Spain, Romania, Austria and Poland. This outcome offered also a sample of best practices found in each of the surveyed countries and also a set of recommendations for partners regarding the development of the virtual game. Part of the questions in the survey also aimed at identifying the main set of skills, which these trainers would like to further deepen in “Strategic Management” and, as a result, we have developed a training itinerary that later on, in IO2 become a training package composed by: 1. Trainer’s Guide and 2. PowerPoint resources. The Trainer’s Guide is a very complete book that explores contents related with the main decision-areas of the game and that are linked with the topic of Strategic Management. These include: 1. Strategic Management; 2. Human Resources; 3. Internationalisation; 4. Sales and Finances; 5. Marketing and Advertisement. The Guide also contains tips for trainers to implementing Training Sessions on Strategic Management in SME’s (and using the virtual game developed as a practical exploration of the topics). The PowerPoint resources are embedded in the game as they contain important information displayed in a way that, if deemed necessary the player can download and further learn about a topic that they have to make a decision on while playing the game. In any case, the package is available on the project website for download (www.bgame-project.eu).